Sometimes we get broken



Last Saturday (nearly a week ago now) I was in the beginning stages of a nervous breakdown. Having been cleaning the house all day including steam cleaning the floor only for my dd to let my dogs in with wet feet to muddy up the once clean floor I was at my wits end. Thus when my dh sat down in the family room to much his favorite snack (sunflower seeds in the shell) I lost it. To him if must have appeared as if my head was rotating and I was projecting pea soup from my mouth while screaming at him to get the damn sun flower seeds out of the family room. (Those damn shells find their way into every crack in the couch and under every piece of furniture). The thing is I was sleep deprived.



Going to bed at midnight after checking the kids blood sugars, waking up at 2am and again at 4am to check blood sugars (this is new it used to only be 3am - but with my dd going back on shots I am not sure how the lantus will affect her so I get up more often), then waking up at 5:30 to make coffee, lunches and get the kids up for school takes a huge toll on the human body.



Doctors recommend 8-10 hours of sleep for adults. Who the heck are they kidding? Even parents without cwd don't usually get that amount of sleep. Most my non D friends get around 6 hours.



Anyway - My body was broken. My hormones were completely out of whack. My left eye twitched uncontrollably and to most others I must have looked like a meth addict. Beginning Sat and continuing through most of Wednesday I would spontaneously cry. Yes I had a hard few days regardless of the sleep deprivation (bad endo visit, bad news for non-diabetic child, money woes) but without the sleep deprivation I might have handled the bad news differently. I still feel bad for the nurse practitioner that saw us that Monday when I just started crying when she told me the news about my non-diabetic boy.
(stopped and saved at this point nearly a month ago - read on)


Years ago when my ds was diagnosed I read about diabetes burnout and also attended a breakout session at the Children with Diabetes Friends of Life Conference by Dr. Richard Rubin called "Diabetes Overwhelmus". I heard people share stories of how the constant vigilance can get to be too much and so breakdowns happen. I've never been one of those "it could never happen to me" kind of people, instead I've always been more of a "I totally have that - or - a meteor IS going to fall from the sky and kill me" kind of person, thus I took the advice seriously. I took breaks, asked for help when I could, accepted help if offered, read books, tried to meet other parents (although I was not privy to the huge DOC yet). I also didn't try to hide my frustrations with D from my kids - I just made sure they knew it was D I was frustrated with - NOT them. I wanted them to understand that it is ok to get down, angry, frustrated, confused, etc. I feel like I had been doing a good job - up until the first week of Feb (which btw is when I started this post - I am just now - nearly a month later - getting back to it - and that is ok. If I allowed myself to get angry at Myself for not being a better blogger than the whole point of writing a blog to release stress (and share inspiration) would be lost). (Also - it is totally acceptable to have multiple parentheses inside other parenthesis - I know this because Kerri from www.sixuntilme.com said it was ok - or at least does it frequently and she is the blog queen.)

So here I am nearly an entire month later. Am I better? Yes. A bit. I am no longer so overwhelmed.

·       My hubby stepped in and took over the 3am blood sugar checks (yes it has been 5 years since our first was dxd so one might say “it is about freaking time” but in all fairness I never asked and often said no when he offered – I’m a bit of a control freak).

·       My daughters Lantus is leveling out – for now – that may change next week – and Lord help us when she gets all hormonal.

·       My dear husband’s brother (and his wife plus 2 boys) came and left and they did not mention the dust on the ceiling fans.

·       I finished up a number of projects I had been working on.

·       I had a garage sale that was over 2 years in the making (by making I mean that I was tossing things in my garage in hopes of having a garage sale one day for a little over two years – the pile of crud took up an entire side of the garage and was 3 feet deep).

·       My mom is here visiting. J

Life gets crazy and I can’t always keep up with it all. I am really good at faking it and find it interesting that other parents of cwd that are either local friends or FB friends will message me, or call me, or show up at my door asking me how I hold it all together. I usually laugh, invite them for coffee and spill the beans.

I don’t always have it together. I cry, I yell, I want to punch things and sometimes do punch things. I ask WHY often. Then I pick up the pieces and go on.

As far as “why” – there doesn’t have to be a “why” – it can just be as it is. OR maybe there is a WHY and it is because me and my kids needed to come before the next family that will be confused, angry, sad, etc and who will need to know they are not alone.

Maybe it is because although I may not be great at writing and I seriously suck at math and I am embarrassed to admit that when my dh told me he was from Lebanon when we met I didn’t know where Lebanon was – I can still teach. I can speak in front of any number of people without breaking a sweat and I want to make a difference. I want to leave this world a better place.